Accounts Banned

From PlayOnline.com:

We would like to report the termination today of multiple accounts held by players involved in the usage of third-party tools or cheats, or engaged in RMT (Real Money Trading) activities.

Based on the results of our investigation, around 6,750 PlayOnline accounts were terminated while around 1,150 accounts were temporarily suspended.
Additionally, we have increased the number of mass bannings against certain PlayOnline violations in order to prevent illegal acts.

Details of the violations are as follows:

- Usage of tools that allow enhanced character movement.
October 4, Approx. 380 cases
October 12, Approx. 360 cases
October 22, Approx. 240 cases

- Usage of tools that circumvent game mechanics with respect to the timing of ability use, etc. in certain areas or at points where Notorious Monsters appear.
October 24, Approx. 50 cases

- Using cheats to automatically repeat a particular action.
September 28, Approx. 720 cases
October 4, Approx. 760 cases
October 11, Approx. 790 cases
October 18, Approx. 800 cases

- Gil and item exchange for real world money.
October 5, Approx. 300 cases
October 12, Approx. 120 cases
October 24, Approx. 410 cases

- Instances of areas or monster monopolization.
Spetember 28, Approx. 900 cases
October 18, Approx. 1,100 cases

- Usage of synthesis and auction houses for RMT activities.
October 24, Approx. 880 cases

- Accounts from people that were previously confirmed to have RMT connections, or that had violated the user agreements but re-subscribed to PlayOnline.
October 24, Approx. 90 cases

The termination of these accounts has led to the removal of approximately 2.3 billion gil from circulation.

We would like to remind players that as well as adversely affecting game balance, the use of third-party tools or cheats can also have consequences that are not immediately obvious, such as introducing damaging viruses, and comprising the security of private account details. Usage of third-party tools will not be tolerated within FINAL FANTASY XI, and we will continue to severely penalize any players found to be in violation of the PlayOnline Member Agreement.

As we continue to ensure a fun and balanced environment for FINAL FANTASY XI, we hope that our players enjoy the game as it was intended and take care to avoid involvement in activities that violate the PlayOnline Member Agreement.

Thank you for your continued cooperation and understanding.

Special Task Force Report

Today's report will outline our actions conducted from September 26, 2007 to October 24, 2007 in dealing with players violating the user agreement, as well as details on the activities, results, and goals of the Special Task Force.

Special Task Force activities and future plans

The number of characters engaged in illegal gil collecting, such as hunters (*1) and characters involved in the use of cheats to automatically repeat particular actions, has been significantly reduced as a result of our activities, but we have recently discovered a new kind of illegal activity that uses third-party programs against NPCs in Southern San d'Oria and The Pit. As was mentioned in the previous report, characters involved with large-scale gil collecting for the purpose of RMT (*2) are having a lot of trouble. It can be presumed that characters involved in direct illegal actions through the above method have appeared as a side effect.
The other day, we introduced some counter-measures through emergency maintenance, but if the same problem occurs again in the future, we will respond swiftly with both edits to the game system and activities against user agreement violators.

The following are the results of our actions from September 26, 2006 to October 24, 2007.

- Cheats to automatically repeat particular actions (specifically illegal fishing)
A total of 3070 accounts were banned within the space of a month.
The steady progress is proceeding slowly, but the characters in question are continuing to decrease as a result of our activities up until now. We are planning on strengthening our activities in dealing with this situation.

- Hunters
As a result of the strengthening of our activities in the Buburimu Peninsula last month, we have seen great results, and the problem of characters continuously defeating the same monsters over and over in the same area for RMT gil collection has significantly improved. We are planning on expanding the scope of our activities into new areas and we appreciate any information FINAL FANTASY XI players can provide.

- Use of synthesis and auction houses for RMT (*3)
A total of 880 accounts were banned within the space of a month.
As a result of new methods of dealing with such characters, we are not simply pursuing characters engaged in synthesis and auction houses for RMT, but we are now capable of expanding our activities to characters who are engaged in the collection of materials for RMT.


*1. Hunters
Characters who kill Notorious Monsters, clear quests, and obtain items over and over again with the sole purpose of gathering gil, which is then handed off to RMT groups.

*2. RMT
"Real Money Trading." Selling game data for real money.

*3. Use of synthesis and auction houses for RMT
Actions involving selling large quantities of in-game items for gil, which is then traded for real money.

Matters of concern within the community

In the following section, we will be explaining the Special Task Force's direction and plans in dealing with matters of concern within the community.

- It seems that the Special Task Force is dealing with sellers engaged in RMT quite severely, but I believe that the buyers should also be severely dealt with. Instead of just warning them, shouldn't you ban their accounts or confiscate their gil and items?
We might temporarily have results in dealing with the RMT problem by confiscating buyers' gil and items, but we cannot perform biased activities such as targeting only gil buyers.
The Special Task Force views both gil buying and gil selling as violations of the user agreement and has taken a policy of dealing out penalties to each violator according to the severity of the violation.
All penalties for each account remain on record, are accumulated, and if a player repeats a violation of the user agreement, a stricter penalty will be dealt out than the previous one on record. Of course, depending on the details of the violation, there are players who are banned on their first violation.
In accordance with this policy, a total of 450 accounts were temporarily suspended or banned within the space of a month for illegal gil purchasing.

- Lately damages caused by unauthorized access have been on the rise. What should I do?
Systematic measures were introduced at the beginning of October to improve security against unauthorized access to PlayOnline from third parties, but recently suspicious URLs have been posted on bulletin boards and forums on community sites. It has been reported that, by clicking on these URLs, one's PlayOnline ID and password may be stolen.
Along with diligently managing your PlayOnline ID and password, we would appreciate it if all players would read the information about spyware included at the end of this report.

Reporting to the Special Task Force

The Special Task Force relies on everyone's information regarding violations of the user agreement to help keep FINAL FANTASY XI an enjoyable environment, and we appreciate your continuing support and cooperation.
Report to Special Task Force

Warning about unauthorized access through spyware

Recently, there has been an increase in damages caused by unknown third-party access to PlayOnline accounts where items and gil are lost, and characters are deleted.
As many of you may be aware, harmful programs known as viruses and spyware are common on the internet and, depending on the kind of program, your computer could become infected by simply viewing a website. Viruses and spyware are believed to be one of the primary causes of recent unauthorized access to PlayOnline.
The following are a few countermeasures in protecting against such harmful programs.

- Do not access websites with unknown or suspicious content.
- Do not download software from unknown or suspicious websites.
- Periodically perform Windows Updates and keep Windows updated to the latest version.
*Refer to Microsoft's official website for more detailed information.
- Periodically update your web browser to the latest version.
- Do not use external tools not approved by Square Enix under any circumstances.
- Always use the latest antivirus software.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in your diligent management of your PlayOnline account.

Comments

Post Comment
Conserning the banning of 2.3 billion gil from the users.
# Oct 26 2007 at 4:21 AM Rating: Decent
Game play has been crappy because of the mass loss of Gil...so how about redistributing it back to the game. I estimate around 43 billion has been lost since last year. this is to my knowledge. Gil Selling is a mass business. Get rid of all the gill sellers, and the Economy in FFXI dies, and the players will quit. Its hard to make money, when the FFXI economy is going through a depression. I have about 10k on average all the time, and i fish and synth. I used to have around 5m on hand at all times.

Banning hackers, im all for it. Banning Gil Sellers, im not. The more money that is taken, the more Gil Sellers there are. This is my opinion, though the loss of players and the coming of even more sellers is a fact.
To Buy or Not to Buy (Gil)...that is the question...
# Oct 25 2007 at 8:47 PM Rating: Decent
Previously stated, offer servers where gil buying is approved and SE has a gil selling site. This true, would work, and for those that think it wouldn't, guess you'll be off to some other game when you get tired of no parties, no items selling, no money to buy that ninja tool item or hi-potion... I think u get the picture.

I personally could care less if you buy or don't buy gil, well kind of:D I do care if the game just goes 'FLOP-BANG-DEAD' due to the fact that it's a cool game. With the decrease of gil sellers, people seem to be disapearing more and more. Is the game gonna survive even w/ a new expansion? I don't know, but sure hope so. I just hope we aren't at the end of FFXI's life expectancy >.<

So give the darn gil sellers and buyers their own server. Make it that once you go to there, you can't come off of there. That's only fair. Tough dingies if you wanted to see what it was like and found you can't hang, yer stuck there and don't cry about it.

That's my 95 cents:D Take it or leave it.
taskforce
# Oct 25 2007 at 1:29 AM Rating: Decent
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337 posts
Double post, my apologies

Edited, Oct 25th 2007 11:40am by Shirai
RMT taskforce
# Oct 25 2007 at 1:28 AM Rating: Decent
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337 posts
About the RMT:

Yes it's a sad fact that as long as people are playing the game there will be gilbuyers thus the gilsellers will always return.
However SE isn't slacking on the part of banning them.
They work pretty hard trying to stop RMT dead in their tracks by banning accounts of RMT, Buyers and Cheaters on a monthly base which deals both a blow to the rmt as to the people cheating.
RMT need to rebuy an FFXI license every time one of their accounts gets deleted, most of the gilbanks they had need to be rebuilt, Characters need to be releveled, this all costs RMT a lot of real money and at some point some groups will say FFXI won't be worth it anymore and quit to go to another game.
(This is already happening at this point.)

I for myself have certainly seen improvements from both the taskforce as from SE themselves changing ingame things.
I'll name a few:
Having taken "valueble" items away from highly RMT monopolized NMs and put them into BCNMs to give everyone an equal chance to obtain said items/money from these.
(Speed Belt, Kraken Club, Strider Boots, Healing Staff, and lots more.)
Changing the spawn conditions of highly RMT monopolyzed mobs.
(Sozu, Alky, Pallas, Despot, Ullikummi, and more.)
The downside is that prices will lower for these, making it harder to get good money for them because competition on the market is higher.
But people now have more chance to buy the item from a legit player instead of being forced to buy it from an RMT putting more cash in their drawers for the buyers.
Or obtain it themselves without fearing a gilseller will try to steal the claim.
(BTW the SH thingy is not the RMT's fault, that's thanks to the BLM mercinaries manaburning ODS and other KS30's.)

Next to that it's impossible for the taskforce to ban all the RMT at once, as a DB admin irl I can vouch for that.
They need to check logs for countless of RMT active zones on all servers.
These logs are huge dumps of raw data which need to be filtered on specific activities.
These activities are never the same and the taskforce needs to know what to look for.
They have improved and figured out to look for on some specific activities but it can always be better, and this is how they can look better:
We need to tell them what to look for, we play the game, we see things they tend to overlook, we recognize rmts by certain characteristics.
We can stay silent, or we can send a suggestion form by mail hinting them on what bothers us and what other activities they can look for and what character names need to be looked at.
Sigh!
# Oct 24 2007 at 11:42 PM Rating: Default
I still say they should try to give us the dam gil they say they take out of circulation.

LM-17
# Oct 24 2007 at 7:24 PM Rating: Decent
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71 posts
Jesus christ... LM-17
Idea
# Oct 24 2007 at 5:04 PM Rating: Decent
This is just an idea after reading some of the post on this subject some better than others.

Why not help SE fight aginst this instead of complaining about it.
How can you help SE fight aginst what is happening well i tell you what i have been doing on my part. I have stop selling items at the cost of what everyone else is selling their items.

Stack of crystals any kind my price 10 gill AH
Armor and weapons any kind my price 10 gill AH
spells 10 gill

Does not matter what it is its 10 gill. I think if everyone decided to lower the cost on all the items it will push the the RMT, Hunters, and Gill sellers not out of the game but we will hurt them as much as they have been hurting us in and out of game.

I think by doing this SE will decide to lower NPC item prices also and to make game play more enjoyable for current and future players.

Please understand that if we keep doing what we are doing now game play will never be enjoyable as SE intended it to be.

For you RMT, Hunters, and Gill sellers out their reading this and other post saying to yourself this will never happen just think about this post and what if everyone started to lower their prices where would that leave you well i can tell you "NO MONEY"
Your item has been sent back to your moghouse.

We few people need to come together and help SE fight this problem and spread the message around teach the future players of FFXI.

Server: Fenrir
Idea
# Oct 25 2007 at 6:06 AM Rating: Default
Your dumb a lot of craters items have been sent back constantly over and over because people are cheap even when I lower the price from 30k to 15k or even 10k. Thats just a example. The game is slowly dying time to do something with my account or just go blah.
Idea
# Oct 25 2007 at 8:14 AM Rating: Decent
Love people who come right out and call other people dumb because the other persons idea doesn't match their own idea... or perhaps it's just the fact that you're not face to face with this other person... either way, I think someone else put it great a long time ago "E-Thugs are E-Tarded". Anyways, Refrigeration, that 10 gil base price thing don't work man. Would you ever have thrown a Scorpion Harness up for sale in Jeuno AH for less than 5mil back in the day? Me personally, I don't like the idea of getting burned by some AH camper, but that's IMO.
Ummm
# Oct 24 2007 at 4:04 PM Rating: Decent
I was refering to when is the maintenance gonna end? ; ; I know RMT won't end.
Ummm
# Oct 24 2007 at 4:08 PM Rating: Default
don't worry about kerah he is a useless piece of flesh that needs to be systematically removed like any normal termite or roach.
gj
# Oct 24 2007 at 3:10 PM Rating: Decent
42 posts
they arent trying to stop gil selling completely. they just want to improve the problems. SH is down to 250k now from like ... multiple millions, and crystals are still at 1-2k per stack, so now its possible for average player to earn one in a few weeks or so instead of 4 months. i just got my PCA and PCC is still 2M, SE just wants most items to be "reasonably earnable" ~took me 40 hours of argus camping btw... it was horrible. i think i developed dissociative identity disorder ; ; anyway i dont know what kept SE from doing it earlier but theyve drastically improved the economic problem. i gotta start gil saving for my first SH, shouldnt be too bad now
gj
# Oct 24 2007 at 3:21 PM Rating: Default
wow idiot talking still didn't read the main thin line in my statement about CRAFTERS not lazy asses that don't earn their gil working hard on skills >.>. Either way XI is dying slowly but surely.
gj
# Oct 24 2007 at 3:52 PM Rating: Good
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594 posts
Not too sure what you mean, if you are referring to me as the 'wow idiot'. You posted after me if you were referring to me, so there was really no way I could have read what you said before I posted lol. Unless flux capacitors really do exist?!?

I only assumed you may have meant me after I deciphered what I think was your point, and realising that my sig is all WoW and no FFXI, of which I have 5 75's and maxed crafts lol.

If not, no harm, no foul.
gj
# Oct 24 2007 at 3:55 PM Rating: Default
No not you and 75 jobs and maxed crafts=me no care ;;. no the idiot that was trying to say how economy is great even though I meant bonecrafters are getting ****** over plenty in crafting. Things too cheap >.<
YEAH EXTENSION!
# Oct 24 2007 at 2:17 PM Rating: Default
WHOO HOO EXTENSION!!! AND NOTHING NEW WILL BE UPDATED YES!
SS for sure
# Oct 24 2007 at 2:00 PM Rating: Default
The SS is the perfect term for the special task force. Gil sellers will be gone once people stop playing the game which is looking very possible very soon. Plus crafters that earned their gil by crafting are starting to lose alot of ******* gil. Hell on siren a scorpy +1 is like 600k NQ scorpy is 220k and the VLCAW to make it alone is 300k. >.> Its a sad day for us bonecrafters 100+3. About to quit myself if SE doesn't do something for the crafters or make new recipes that we can actually earn decent gil again >.<
Idea?
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:56 PM Rating: Good
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594 posts
This is just an idea.

Just set up a few servers designed for RMT'ers. Make a choice for people. If they wanna play on a server where they can buy gil, then put them on a gil buying server. If they want to play on a non-gil buying server, then let them do that as well. If they choose to buy gil on a regular server, then perma ban them.

It's not ever going to stop really. They can limit it, use scare tactics and make penalties harsher, but in reality, some people have disposable income that they don't mind spending on a game. I'm not defending gil buying in the game now, but if they offered server choices where it was legal, then maybe all parties would be happy.

Honestly, I feel that the best way to beat em is to join them. If SE set up a few gil buying servers, then sold the gil, not only would they make money, but players would be offered a choice. Right now niether gil buyers, nor non-gil buyers have a choice...everyone has to play together. And everyone suffers for it.

And for those that say the economy would be ****, well of course it would be, but at least they would all be in one place affecting their own economy and not the rest of ours. At least this way, most people would be able to enjoy the game the way they wanted to.

I apologize if this post offends anyone, it was just an idea.
Idea?
# Oct 25 2007 at 10:25 AM Rating: Decent
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50 posts
I love this concept, pure brilliance.
Idea?
# Oct 24 2007 at 4:35 PM Rating: Decent
Not knocking on your idea, but like communism, it looks good in writing, but when actually put to use... it ultimately will fail. Reason being, is server migration. What's to stop these guys from buying bundles of gil then migrating to another server? Would SE stop them? Of course they can deny their request for server migration, but would that be fair? More importantly, would SE look the other way to rack up more money in their pockets from a spike in server migration?
Idea?
# Oct 24 2007 at 4:02 PM Rating: Default
I do like this idea at least some people would stay playing
Idea?
# Oct 24 2007 at 3:00 PM Rating: Decent
42 posts
dude thats fcking genious. i see no fundamental problem with working in RL to buy ur SH or working in FF to buy ur SH. time is money in any world. and that really might help. "hey if u wanna sell gil thats fine but do it on [server name], *******. if i see u fish botting again on this server ur gonna get banned" of course itll be like cheap easy version of FFXI, similar to WoW, but i no reason comes to mind that this would make anything worse. there is some truth in the "if u cant beat them join them", i wonder how many millions the gov't gets in alchohol taxes, and how much trouble u get by illegalizing it. why dont they profit from weed and prostitution? tax and police both of them. i cant judge someone and their life, and im sure theres a way to safely police the way ppl escape. weed and blow jobs are definetly teh safest. drunk driving is still a problem that needs to be worked on, but coke and heroine should probly stall illegal it seems ^^
Idea?
# Oct 24 2007 at 3:59 PM Rating: Default
Man you can't spell or do correct grammar. Why haven't you been shot yet for your stupidity?
Idea?
# Oct 24 2007 at 5:14 PM Rating: Decent
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114 posts
Quote:
Man you can't spell or do correct grammar. Why haven't you been shot yet for your stupidity?


Irony.
Idea?
# Oct 25 2007 at 4:56 AM Rating: Decent
LMAO
Can't play yet again!!!!
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:32 PM Rating: Default
You know I’m glade for the maintenances. Thank you SE for continuing to try to make the game better. Thank you for trying to stop the cheaters and people who monopolize the game. But FU@#…!!! Do your maintenances always need to run during US prime time? Always right after work or school. I mean damn really sucks -.-. Give us a break and run one once after hours. I mean sh!# I do IT support for GoDaddy.com, all our maintainers are run at 12am >.<

Just my 2cents.
Can't play yet again!!!!
# Oct 24 2007 at 10:55 PM Rating: Decent
I'd say, given that the bulk of the player-base for FFXI is in Japan, and that SE is a Japanese based company, and that they've done maintenance at roughly the same time since the game went live ... odds are it won't change.

Notice how WoW and EQ2 do their maintenance between 5am-7am pst? Both California based companies, both doing maintenance during off peak hours for their local time zone.
Can't play yet again!!!!
# Oct 24 2007 at 3:26 PM Rating: Default
Darqflame's Peon
ZAM Administrator
****
6,096 posts
well they dont like interfre with JP time (PST) because JPs made all the FFs you have in ur closet and currently playing ;3 and extention -_.-
...
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:30 PM Rating: Default
As long as there are worthless douchebags who are too lazy to get a real job, there will be RMTs. There is no way around it.
White Magic Power!
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:29 PM Rating: Default
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222 posts
It will end when the special task force... you know thats an awfully big name let shorten it to something arbitrary like um.... SS.

Ok back on track. It will end when the SS has eliminated all of the gil sellsers from ffxi.

Well, wait, no. It will end once they've removed all of the people that use cheats from the game.... well geez, then they'll have to remove people that associated with them...

Lets not forget the gil buyers! AH campers, NM monopolizers and of course the dreaded teleport taxi's.

Hrm, well then they'll also need to remove all the people who ever offended another player or beat them to a claim or inconvenienced them in any way.

They could setup a system where you can rat out people you suspect of violating the user agreement. Those who inform will of course need to be given special preference in the new clean and pure world of FFXI.

Then what if one language like english, german or japanese offends someone... hmm better move all of the different languages to another server , keep them apart so nobody will get any radical ideas.


K i'm done. but you get the idea. You can never satisfy everyone. SE apparently hasn't learned this. The more crap they do, the more its gonna drive up the real world price of gil and the more people are going to try to sell it.

FLAME ON! :) lol

----------------
summoner for life! :)
White Magic Power!
# Oct 24 2007 at 4:05 PM Rating: Default
so true ; ; instead of FIXING the game they focus on the gilsellers. Instead of necromancer they bring pup the new dragoon job. Instead of new ways to make gil or synth recipes for ALL CRAFTS they make dancer. It makes me ponder if they are just trying to get people from FFXI to quit so we will all join their new online game coming out sometime soon.
White Magic Power!
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:45 PM Rating: Decent
xariol wrote:
It will end when the special task force... you know thats an awfully big name let shorten it to something arbitrary like um.... SS.



i thought this had already been shortened to STF, and STFU...


amiright?
Um...
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:16 PM Rating: Default
It's never gonna end of course.
Um...
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:06 PM Rating: Decent
When is it gonna end? >_>
Um...
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:30 PM Rating: Good
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1,191 posts
It'll end when it is no longer profitable.
Um...
# Oct 24 2007 at 4:09 PM Rating: Decent
When will maintenance end? not RMT lol
Um...
# Oct 24 2007 at 4:07 PM Rating: Decent
Was refering to when maintenance is going to end... not RMT. :/ I wanna play damnit!
Um...
# Oct 24 2007 at 1:16 PM Rating: Default
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131 posts
As long as when people stop playing ffxi. or until there is no such thing as money.
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